Do you fear losing the ability or chance to talk to those you play onilne with everyday, someone you've never met, never hugged, never seen cry, but yet you feel a bond, would you be upset if you lost the chance to ever talk to them again? or is it merely just a game, with lines of code and levels to gain.........

To put it simply; yes. Thrice have multiple good friends linked only by our Internet connections on three different muds left or changed names - sometimes anonymously, or sometimes they tell me but I can't remember their new name - and so it was disheartening for me.

Lines of code (albeit code you can't see as text room descriptions, but rather visuals) and levels to gain resembles a game like Diablo. Chatting is only done to trade for the best item or decide where to go, and those choices are limited.

The bond gets a little deeper when you can confide in someone that's in your clan, or when you've explored new areas and found cool items together...Something you don't get when you play Everquest.

"It's just a game" is a common misconception, and as Amnon said, there are real people behind the keyboards. 'It's just a game' applies to when your roleplayed entities get fairly killed (permadeath or some important loss especially), and you still keep a cool head. Rather, NOT when you start getting insulted on an OOC medium (Most PvP video games, ooc channels) and then get told that it's "part of the game."

In a short word, yes. We recently suffered the real life passing of one of our long-term players. It was heartening to see the overwhelming grief and sense of loss that our players felt. (And staff, for that matter).

I have learned that the game, mobs, rooms, etc may be lines of text, but the people behind the PCs are real. They have real feelings that can be hurt, real life joys to be shared, etc. And if you treat them like that, they tend to become your friends, even though you couldn't pick their face out in a crowd of two.

Kind of a neat dynamic in this internet world we live in.